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Posted on April 25th, 2004 - 2759 Reads

Rated Teen Skies of Arcadia Legends GameCube Review Silver Award

-- Written by Andrew Rogers



 I missed this game the first time it was released on the DC for some reason, but after discovering of this game's release on the Nintendo GameCube, I looked into it. I began reading things said by peers such as "greatest RPG of all time", and "most enjoyable game ever." After reading this, I decided to give it a try, although, I don't normally have the time or patience to play RPG's. Continue on to see what all the hype surrounding this 'Director's Cut' version of the definitive Dreamcast RPG, Skies of Arcadia, is all about.

Presentation: Upon booting up, you'll be presented with a cheery, bright cutscene showing all of the main characters in their respective settings. The music is fully orchestrated, and sounds nice. The main menu gives you two options: New Game, or Continue. All the menus are easy to navigate and look very nice. Not much to complain about here, simple and clean. Good music, clean menus, and easy to control.

Graphics: Being that this is a Dreamcast port, you will still notice the muddy textures, low poly count, and minimal SFX. The textures are reused countless times, and will often create very bland looking worlds. I was shocked, though, with the number of different locales and towns that were ed, none of them looking like they were rushed or carried over from other locations. The main characters in game have been greatly improved, adding in probably double the polys. They all look pretty nice, although, at times, out of place. The best thing about the characters is the huge amount of expressions they display throughout the entire game. The expressions on the characters faces accurately display their mood and look great. When the main characters are interacting with the NPCs you will notice a drastic difference in quality though, the NPCs looking like talking blocks. The character animation can range from ultra-choppy, to very well done. Often times in cutscenes the characters will move as if they were robots. Some of the various dungeons and temples are also very beautiful and well designed. The giant bosses known as Gigas also are very impressive to look at. Its too bad that the over world is so horribly ed. It seems like it was completely rushed, as if time ran out for the project. When you enter it on your ship for the first time, you will notice how bland it is when compared to the rest of the game. The pop-up and blockyness of the over world is unacceptable, considering the amount of time you will be spending traveling there from place to place.

For the Dreamcast's time, these visuals were exceptional, but these days, it is far below what is expected. I was somewhat bothered by it at first, this being right after finishing Resident Evil 0, but you'll get used to it. If you feel graphics are very important to you, perhaps you should rent it before buying. But remember, this game's strength is in the excellent story telling and great gameplay. I wasn't expecting to be blown away, and considering this is a Dreamcast port, the rating receives some leeway.

Sound: The music in game is enjoyable, and well fitting for the type of environment and mood the scene is in. The beginning music, as mentioned above, is fully orchestrated, and the game music is high quality midi. The sound effects are very minimal. Often times when you would expect a sound, there will be none, giving a 'cheap' feel to it. But being that this game is so massive, its forgivable. The voice acting is pitiful and annoying. Thankfully, you won't hear too much of their voices, but certain lines will get on your nerves, such as Aika's obnoxious laugh, or the shouting of "moon's, give me strength!" said before EVERY spell. An exceptional soundtrack, sub-par voice acting, and overused sound effects all roll into a decent sounding, and at times, barely bearable package.

Gameplay: This massive 40 hour plus adventure definitely has its highs and lows. The game has such an involved and complex story that it will keep you playing for 4-6 hour blocks at times, and sometimes, it will force you to, due to save points being as far as 1 hour apart at times. The story involves a young 17-year-old boy, on a quest to save the world from the evil Valuans, and their scheme to awaken the mighty Gigas to control the world. At first it will seem like your average cookie-cutter adventure game story where you must collect X amount of Y crystals in order to contain the power of the entire Universe. But actually it all is extremely similar to a certain movie set in space a long, long time ago in a far away galaxy. Given the similarities, this game does offer much difference, and excellent storytelling, with enough twists and turns to keep you interested the whole time. One thing I loved is that you won't miss the whole story even if you skip the side-quests and other gimmicks used to try and lengthen the already too long game.

The battle system is in the style of classic SNES RPGs. Which means the Battle system gets old, and fast. It isn't necessarily bad at all, but it changes very little from the time you first battle to the final boss. The spells all look very similar, and can be annoying to sit through them every time, because they often take about 10+ seconds to execute. What also bothers me is that most of your opponents will cast the same spells you do; it just would have been nice to see more variety in enemy attacks. The amount of enemies come across is impressive, but more often than not you will see the same enemy, just painted a different color and with a different amount of HP. Even though it may sound bad the way I describe it, it is not, I am merely focusing on battle system lows, and there are more great things than bad things to be experienced in the battle system. The super moves are, simply put, awesome. Each character in your party has the potential to learn a few special moves, which can range from a super powerful attack, to a magic shield for your entire party. Upon selecting a super move you will be presented with a great clip of your character attacking in a style reminiscent to something seen in Dragon Ball Z or any other the other anime toons. The Spirit Point system is pretty nifty, adding in some bonus strategy. Basically your spirit points limit the amount of magic or super moves you can execute during a round. Your spirit points will regenerate slightly every round, and you can save them by using generic slash attacks until you have enough points to do what you want to do. Magic Points are used also, but every spell, no matter how powerful, will only take one MP. Spells are sorted in 6 different classes. Life, Fire, Ice, Wind, Electric, and Spirit, or accordingly: green, red, purple, blue, yellow, and silver. Each have 6 spells that you can learn, each getting more and more powerful and impressive, yet change little, and often are just a stronger version of the spell you learned earlier. Boss battles are always exciting and challenging. You'll be on your toes the entire time. And one thing I loved was the fact that if you die in a boss fight, you can simply start again from the start of the battle, in order to eliminate going through the same area several times until you defeat the boss. The boss retry system goes for ship battles as explained below also.

Ship battles are another type of battle you will encounter quite frequently. Basically you will fight from your ship against another ship. You decide for 4 turns in advance what you want your ship to do, whether it be heal itself, shoot torpedoes, cannons, or secondary cannons, or your ships special weapon. All of these take Spirit Points, which charge up slightly after each round. These battles are exciting at first, but soon you'll be taking trips to the kitchen to make a snack while the battle takes place, that is literally how long each round takes, and it get annoying at times, especially when you are presented with several ships to battle consecutively. You'll get to battle in 2 different ships during the course of the whole game, and you get to upgrade them and deck them out with whatever you want, which is allows for your ship to get incredibly strong.

Your party will consist of Vyse, Aika, Fina, and a third character that will change at different points in the game. This keeps the battles feeling fresh every once in a while. Eventually you will be able to own your own ship and run a customizable base. You will be in charge of finding a very large crew also. The freedom and upgrading of everything in your possession is definitely the reason you keep going on, and even well beyond after you complete the game. There are just so many things to do, you'll often just spend a few hours at a time exploring or doing something outside of the normal quest. Deep, diverse, exciting, and polished. Everything you would expect from a great RPG.

Fun: This is one of the few games that I have played that will actually have you emotionally involved. When a town is leveled, you will actually care. When you finally get your own ship to command, you WILL get excited. You will actually want to explore every inch of the map, and you will learn to care about the characters in the game. I have only experienced this type of gameplay in a handful of other RPGs and the N64 Zelda games. The story is actually interesting, and you won't ever feel like skipping through. There is no crap filler in an attempt to make the game feel more epic or deep like I have seen in countless other games.

The variety of settings will more than impress you. Everything from tiny pirate villages to giant empires exist within the world known by Vyse. You'll encounter an oriental town, burning desert cities, a dark evil metropolis, an ancient ice encased temple, and a primitive tree dwelling village, among other things. The people in each section all look and act differently, and keep the game fresh at every moment. Admittedly, the game feels a little too "happy and bright" most of the time, but it still has a great nautical atmosphere nonetheless.

Now, this game is not without its frustrating and boring times. Unless you are some kind of level-up loving freak, you'll want to skip about half the random battles you encounter during your ship navigation. I constantly felt like I was wasting my time battling enemies that gave little incentive to beat other than just to get through it to continue traveling to my destination. The battles are so incredibly sluggish you'll want to just put the controller down and take a break every once in a while. The random battles in the dungeons get exceedingly tedious also. I guess this is just the type of thing experienced in most old-school RPGs, but the battles could have been exciting the whole game through if they just made the enemies more difficult and occur only 1/5 of the time they normally would. Emotionally involving gameplay and charming settings will suck you in and won't let go until you finish.

Replay: Being that this game is so long, I couldn't ever see myself replaying it again. There are some side quests, discoveries, and moonfish to collect if you feel like you want to extend your playing, but as for me, I worry about the story progression, not getting 100% on the game. I see the side-quests in this game as gimmicks and are of little importance to completing the game. Enough side quests, although shallow, to keep you busy for a short while if you are really into it.

Overall: It's not for no reason that this game is so commonly hailed as one of the greatest RPGs of all time. Simply put, it is one of the best gaming experiences you will ever have, if you are willing to give it the needed 40 hours or more of play time. If you still have doubts about this game, perhaps it isn't for you, and it definitely isn't for everyone. If you have never seriously played an RPG, this would be a great one to get started on. I would like to thank SEGA for porting over this wonderful game, as it is not often you stumble upon such a wonderful masterpiece. Get out there and experience it.

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